Meeting Coretta Scott King
I was working with one of my high risk students in 1988 when I suddenly felt nausea and pain in my chest. I mentioned it to the student and stopped to take a few deep breaths. The pain went away within a few minutes, the day ended, I went home and took a nap, walked to the racket club, played racquetball and walked back home. Just as I laid in bed that night I thought someone had their hands around my throat and was choking. There was heaviness in my chest. I waited for it to go away and when it didn’t, got up and took my blood pressure which was 220/157 or something like that. It was quite high.
The logical thing would have been to call 911, but I drove myself to the hospital and when they ignored me, told him I thought I was having a heart attack and they rushed me into the ER.
What’s this have to do with Mrs. King you’re probably asking, but it was the heart attack, the recovery, and my return to work where fighting with the school administration over getting computers repaired (I was teaching computer ed) and the air conditioning fixed in my windowless room the next year that made me fear for my life and put in for a sabbatical. Yes, God does work in mysterious ways.
I took off in my motor home to tour the U.S and visit high schools and colleges and report back at the end of the sabbatical year. It was while I was on sabbatical that I met Mrs. King.
I was in Florida when I heard civil rights marchers were gathering in Selma, Alabama to walk from Selma to Montgomery to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery March. The first march took place in 1964. Congressmen John Lewis was beaten half to death, a white minister and a white woman were killed.
The march had already started when I arrived in Selma. I stopped at an RV park on a lake just out of town. The people running it saw I was from California. While acting civil toward me, just off handedly mentioned the march. I acted surprised, not really knowing what the south was like and if my life would be in danger.
I went into town and bought a newspaper and located the church where the march began. The people at the church told me the march was already about 15 miles along the 50 mile route between Selma and Montgomery. I drove to the church where they were meeting that night and was one of a handful of white people in the church. I told the leaders I wanted to help and they recruited my RV as the medical wagon.
People were in and out of my RV all the way to Montgomery. A photographer drove my RV a couple times so I could march. There were black state patrol officers that were traveling with the march and it made me think that you’d have never see that in 1964 when I was a naive senior at the University of Washington
The march stopped at a Catholic school on the outskirts of Montgomery. I believe it was St. Joseph, the name I took when I was confirmed. The original march stopped at the same place and the school was mostly white. It was now all black because it had been boycotted by the whites because they allowed the marchers to stop there and hold a rally on their grounds.
I mingled with the marchers and visited with the school secretaries who were some of the most cheerful and friendly women I’ve ever met. I visited a class of 7th graders that didn’t have one white student in it. I made a terrible mistake. After I’d been greeted with a very warm welcome, I asked if there were any white students in the school, and the room went silent and the smiles disappeared. I tried to extricate myself from the embarrassing situation and soon things were back to normal and my stupidity forgiven.
That evening I was outside the school meandering around, observing the various activities when the secretaries saw me and asked if I’d like to meet Mrs. King. I was surprised and immediately said yes. They took me to a small door at the back of the school and introduced me to the man at the door who led me through the door to a small room where Mrs. King was sitting in what I’d call a receiving line. Dick Gregory sat at the beginning of the line, a couple other well known personalities were next, and then Mrs. King.
I read Dick Gregory’s book, Nigger, to my class my first year of teaching and been told I had to quit reading it. I did out of fear of losing my job which I did eventually lose. It may well have started with reading his book. I told him of the incident and he didn’t seem impressed at all. I was disappointed. The next two visits with the celebrities were brief. Soon I was in front of Mrs. King. She held out her hand, asked my name, and told me she appreciated my participation in the march. She added that Dr. King had been able to get the Voting Rights Bill passed because of the march.
Then, of course I made my second mistake. I told her that I’d watched the movie, King, which was about his and her life. “I loved the movie. It inspired me,” I said. She said she didn’t like it. I didn’t want to act more like a fool, so said, “I’m sorry to hear that, but it gave me an idea about what Dr. King’s work was all about and the part you played in it.” She smiled and said thank you and looked to the next person in line. I’d been among the first to enter and now a long line of visitors had formed as I walked out the door into the dark illuminated night.
This might have been the end of it except for a small thing that happened the next day. I parked the RV in the parking area in front of the State Capitol building where the march would end. Someone gave me a ride back to St. Joseph’s and I marched and sang with the marchers. There’s a water fountain a few blocks from the capitol building where I broke off and rushed to the RV to get there ahead of the marchers. I climbed on top of the RV to shoot video. As Mrs. King and the marchers approached, Mrs. King looked up with a look of fear on her face. The look disappeared when she realized it was me.
I have a few other anecdotes about the march which I’ll tell in future blogs.
